


Back to Life

by sonoflight



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Blood, M/M, Suicide Attempt, depression/mental illness, self-harm (kinda?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 22:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8641198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonoflight/pseuds/sonoflight
Summary: A little short story about how I interpret G.I.N.A.S.F.S. and the (fictional) narrative about what could be behind the lyrics (you'll recognize some references to the song!).





	

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who were not directed here from tunglr.corn, this was written for the November fobcc Theme: Song Shuffle, Prompt: G.I.N.A.S.F.S. And however you got here, thanks for reading! (also go check out the Nov fobcc submission from @aliens-are-real-my-dudes. He and I got the same prompt, and his piece is outstanding!)

Pete’s phone is ringing again.  He hates the sound.  It’s like life is knocking on his door while he’s in a business meeting with the afterlife.  At least, something like that.  Maybe if he wasn’t so damn tired he’d come up with something a little more eloquent.  Heaving a heavy sigh, he rolls over in bed to glance at his screen.  Patrick.  Of course it’s Patrick.  Who else would think to call him at two in the morning?  It hurts knowing that Patrick loves him this much.  It probably hurts Patrick to know that he’s going to be ignored once again, for the eighth day and forty-sixth call in a row.  Pete’s counted every one.  It fucking hurts.

Just for a second, Pete considers picking up.  Patrick doesn’t deserve this—this whatever’s going on.  He’s making the borderline insane effort to call about every four hours, so maybe it’s only fair that Pete answers this time.  But there’s something stopping him.  It’s the little devil on his shoulder, in his head, mocking him.

_He doesn’t really want to talk to you._

_He’s just doing this to keep up appearances._

_He’d do this for everyone because that’s who he is._

_He’s sick of you and he’s calling to say he’s quitting the band._

_If he really loved you, he’d knock on the door and talk to you in person._

_What’s there for him to love anyway?  You’re just a lousy, fucked up piece of—_

“Shut up,” Pete says aloud.  His own voice sounds jarring and wrong in his ears.  He sounds like someone who’s been lying in bed crying for a week, which, come to think of it, he is.  He thinks of Patrick’s voice—the voice that sings him to sleep when they’re on tour, the voice on all the demos he keeps to himself, the voice that tried to hide behind a drum kit, the voice that made Fall Out Boy famous.  The voice that Pete Wentz fell in love with.  He wants to hear that voice.

The answering machine picks up.  “Hey, um, Pete?”  Patrick sounds tired, and Pete feels the ache in his chest.  He’s doing that to his Patrick.  “It’s me again.  Listen, I know you probably don’t want to hear from me anymore, but can you at least just text me so I know you’re alive?  I’ve given you a week and you’re kind of starting to scare me.  There aren’t any new headlines about your death though, so I guess I shouldn’t be too worried.”  Patrick laughs nervously, and Pete feels the smallest hint of a smile on his face.  He loves Patrick’s laugh.  “I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny.  Anyways, I’d really appreciate it if you’d answer.  Even if it’s just to say you want me to stop talking to you for the rest of our lives.  I don’t care, just,”  Patrick takes a shaky breath, and Pete knows that breath.  It’s what Patrick does when he’s trying not to cry.  “Just tell me you’re okay.”  There’s a pause.  “I love you.”

Pete listens to the voicemail over and over again, trying to convince himself to call Patrick back.  The last thing he wants is to worry Patrick.  But he can’t do it—he just can’t and he doesn’t know why.  Perhaps he’s afraid to admit how scared he is that Patrick doesn’t really love him back.  Yet he keeps dwelling on what Patrick said.  _For the rest of our lives._   The implications of that should be comforting.  _Our._   That means Patrick believes in a “them.”  They’re still PeteandPatrick in his mind.  At least, Pete hopes that’s what it means.

“C’mon,” he says to himself.  He finds that talking out loud grounds him a little better.  “I’ll make a deal with you.  Get out of bed, walk around the house, and call Patrick.  Then we can do whatever you want.”  He takes a deep breath.  “Deal.”

It takes more energy than is reasonable, but he manages to swing his legs off the side of the bed and shakily get to his feet.  In the last week he’s only been up to grab a glass of water and use the bathroom.  He looks over at the glass still sitting on his bedside table and the little bit of water left over.  How pitiful he must look right now.  The poster-boy sellout, wallowing in his own sorrow, barely able to drag himself out of bed.

Pete fishes around under the covers for his shirt—well, Patrick’s shirt—and puts it on.  It’s Patrick’s old “A Day in the Life” shirt that he “borrowed” and never gave back.  It’s a kind of comfort item now because even after all these years, it still smells just a little bit like Patrick. 

He thinks, with a sinking feeling, that his mind might just be playing tricks on him.

Stealing Patrick’s things became a habit for Pete.  He must have a dozen old shirts that Patrick either outgrew or “lost” on tour, and he has a ratty pair of sneakers that Patrick thinks he left in a hotel room years ago.  Pete slides those on too.  He doesn’t care how he must look, wandering around in ill-fitting clothes that belong to another man, last week’s makeup still smudged on his face. 

Fighting the urge to lie back down and cry himself to sleep, Pete shuffles his way to the bathroom.  He looks dreadful.  There are dark circles around his eyes that have nothing to do with his eyeliner.  His cheeks are hollow and his eyes are bloodshot from crying.  His hair is in hopeless disarray.  He looks almost as drained as he feels.

Perhaps rather foolishly, he rubs at his blotched eyeliner, as if he can just wipe his exhaustion away.  It’s laughable honestly, but he does it anyways.  It’s some sort of last attempt at putting himself back together.  Has that ever worked?  He can’t remember.  He can’t remember anything but this nothingness he’s drowning in and the voices creeping like vines through his mind, crowding out the light and withering his sanity. 

_Unlovable Useless Disposable Worthless Wasteofspace Failure LousyMistakePieceofshit—_

The sound of shattering glass is deafening.  Pete stares at his fragmented reflection for a moment before tearing his eyes away.  He can’t look at himself.  He can’t.  And there’s blood all over his shaking hand, running down his arm, and he thinks he could paint his tattoos with the red.

Pete drags himself out to his living room, loosely cradling his injured fist.  He’s not in pain though, he’d just rather not drip blood all over the place.  He dials Patrick’s number, the only number he knows by heart, on his home phone in the kitchen and listens as the dial tone drones on.  He doesn’t put the phone to his ear though.  He just lays it on the counter and stares at it. 

“Pete?”  Patrick’s voice is muted, but it’s still so soothing.  “Pete are you there?”  Pete allows his gaze to linger on the phone for another second, before trudging away.  He doesn’t want to talk to Patrick anymore.  “Pete, come on...”

The rest is lost as Pete wanders back toward his bedroom.  He passes his favorite spot in the house.  He used to have a life-sized cardboard cutout of Patrick propped against his wall, but a month or so ago, he had traced the outline onto the wall and scrapped the cutout.  It’s far less obsessive to have his best friend’s silhouette drawn sloppily on the wall in sharpie than to have a cardboard cutout propped against the wall.  If he tries hard enough, he can even convince himself that it’s just a random silhouette born from boredom and ownership of a sharpie.

He kisses the place where Patrick’s mouth would be and imagines it’s the real thing.

 _Not fair,_ he thinks, continuing toward the bathroom.  Not fair that he’s stuck here yearning for a love he can’t have, not really, because Patrick doesn’t love him the way Pete wants him to.  There’s a tightness in Pete’s throat and chest, but he finds himself too drained to even cry.  He thinks about that little bottle of pills in his medicine cabinet, and he hears them beckoning, inviting him.  It’s just so easy.

He’s staring himself in the face again.  He hates himself.  And if he can’t do it, then how could anybody?  How could Patrick?  And that settles it. 

He picks up a large shard of glass that had fallen into the sink when he’d punched the mirror.  It’s sharp as a razor blade.  Perfect.  He sinks down against the wall and stares at his hands, one bleeding, one holding his ticket to the afterlife. 

This is it.  The end.  Unless something goes wrong… _No,_ he tells himself.  No, they say third time’s the charm, right?  He’s going to do it right this time.  He holds the glass to his wrist, and—

Patrick is there, his hands warm and comforting.

“Don’t,” he says, gently taking the glass from Pete.  “Please.”  Pete feels fingertips under his chin, urging him to look up.

He meets Patrick’s eyes, two tiny blue-green oceans filled with worry.  Pete knows he hurt Patrick again.  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice hoarse.

A sob erupts from Patrick and he pulls Pete against him like his life depends on it.  “Why?” he says shakily into Pete’s hair, and Pete feels Patrick’s tears on his skin.  “I can’t lose you, Pete.  Do you even know how bad that would kill me?”  Patrick pulls away and gently holds Pete’s head between his hands, his eyes imploring.  “Do you?”

Pete can feel the urge to cry welling up in his chest like a bubble about to burst.  But all he can do is nod at Patrick.  He knows, deep down.  Still, there’s a part of him that believes he’s unlovable, even to Patrick.

“I love you,” Patrick says, tears streaking his face.  “You stupid, selfish prick.  You hear me?  I love you.  I don’t want to live without you.” 

It takes Pete a few seconds to process that Patrick is kissing him.  But then it hits him, and the bubble bursts, and he’s crying and kissing Patrick, who’s also crying, and he can’t breathe because it feels so good, and maybe he should disappear more often if it means Patrick will find him and kiss him on the bathroom floor.

“Stop,” Patrick murmurs against his lips.  Pete doesn’t so much hear it as feel it.  “I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to drop off the face of the earth for me to love you.”

Pete nods and Patrick pulls away, just far enough for them to look into each other’s eyes, and Pete feels a little better knowing that Patrick is still here, after everything.  All of their fights and heartbreaks, and this stubborn, pushy, insufferable asshole is still his best friend in the entire world.

“Come on,” Patrick says, using his sleeve to wipe the tears from his face.  “Let’s talk.”

 

Pete leans against Patrick and rests his head on Patrick’s shoulder.  Patrick runs his fingers through Pete’s hair.  He keeps opening and closing his mouth like he wants to speak, but now that the initial shock of emotion is over, neither of them seem to know what to say.  There are a million words buzzing around in Pete’s head, but none of them quite fit the situation.

Finally he says, “I’m sorry.”  Patrick jumps a little as if he hadn’t expected Pete to be the one who broke the silence.  Pete understands the sentiment.  “I didn’t mean…”  He looks down at the ground, too afraid to meet Patrick’s eyes.  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Patrick sighs.  “No, it’s me who should apologize,” he says.  “I promised I’d always be here for you, but I guess I assumed you just needed space.  I overestimated how well I can read you.”

“Hey, never trust a Gemini, right?” Pete quips, daring a glance in Patrick’s direction.  Thankfully Patrick got the joke, and his lips twitch up into a small smile.

“That’s terrible,” he retorts anyways, just because he’s a buzzkill.  “I can’t believe you actually fall for that zodiac bullshit.”

“Remember the last two times?” Pete blurts out.  Patrick looks confused.  “Y’know, the parking lot incident.  And the—the other time.”  Pete clears his throat awkwardly, wondering why he even brought it up.  He really needs some impulse control.

“Yeah,” Patrick says quietly.  “I remember.  It scared me,” he admits.  “When your mom called and said you were in the hospital because you’d taken a bottle of pills.  But I also kinda wanted to strangle you when you woke up and the first thing you said was, ‘what’s good, dude?’”  Pete laughs.  He doesn’t remember that, but he can believe it.  “You were a suicidal mess, and that’s all you could come up with.  But then you tried convincing me that you weren’t suicidal and that you just wanted your head to shut up, and god, I really hated you right then.”

“As I recall, you called me a stupid, selfish prick back then too,” Pete interjects.  “It’s almost like you can’t come up with any other insults.”  Patrick rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” he continues, “I really thought I was gonna lose you that day.  And you swore you’d never do it again—“

“But then I did,” Pete mumbles.  Patrick nods.

“Yeah…”  He furrows his brow.  “That night hurt me even more.  I—I…”  He rubs at his eyes, trying to hide tears.  “I found you on the roof of our hotel one night, standing at the edge.  You were just there, staring off into space, wearing one of your stupid hoodies, and you had a bottle of whiskey in hand.  I thought you were gonna lose your balance and fall.  And—“ He takes a deep breath.  Pete had heard the parking lot story from Patrick a million times, but he’d never heard Patrick talk about this night.  Patrick always said it was too painful a memory. 

“You tried to jump,” Patrick says, and Pete can hear the anguish in his voice.  “You just… took a step forward.  I don’t really remember running to you, but I did.  I grabbed you and pulled you back onto the roof.  And you fought me—that was the worst part.  You really did want to die that night.  You screamed at me and called me names and reminded me of all my insecurities.  It was the only time you ever did something like that, but I was so tempted to just let go of you and let you jump.

“I think you stopped struggling after an hour or so.  You passed out I think.  Of course, I only noticed then that you’d hurt yourself.  You never told me, but I’m guessing you’d tried to bash your head in with the headboard, because there was a splinter sticking out, just below your eyebrow, and in the morning, we found out you’d destroyed your bed.  It was one of the most difficult nights I’ve ever had.  Andy and Joe too.”

Pete feels guilty immediately.  He’d always believed himself to be a good friend.  Maybe an irritating friend sometimes, but he never thought he’d have it in him to claw at Patrick’s worst fears and insecurities, especially if Patrick was only trying to save him.

“I’m a shitty friend,” he realizes aloud.

“No,” Patrick says.  “You’re not, so don’t even go there.  I didn’t tell you all of that so you’d feel bad.  I told you because I need you to know that I’ll always save you because I love you no matter what.  Get it?”  He’s giving Pete a serious look.

“If I say yes and mean it, do I get a kiss?” Pete asks.  He’s joking though.  Mostly.

“Absolutely,” Patrick says without hesitation.

“Then yes,” Pete decides.  And he wills himself to believe in this wonderful, beautiful little man.

Patrick’s lips fit against his so nicely, and this kiss is less frantic than the one they shared in the bathroom.  It feels less like Patrick is kissing the life back into him.

“If you write a song about this,” Patrick says into the kiss.  “I get to kill you myself.”  Pete laughs.

"Of course," he says.

But he's already started.

                             

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr @peterlewiswingstonkentz


End file.
